But then I came across Stephen
Ballentyne's petition to "Bring Back Tim Hunt", and I was
transported back five years to my first ever blog post on "Academic
Mobbing in Cyberspace," a strange tale about sex, fruitbats and
internet twittermobs. I started blogging in 2010 because I wanted to highlight
how the internet encourages people to jump in to support causes without really
examining the facts of the matter. The Ballentyne petition points to an uncannily
similar conclusion.

Let me start out by saying I am not arguing against people's
right to take Tim Hunt's side. As many people have noted, he is a well-liked
man who has done amazing science and there are many women as well as men who will
speak up for him as a supporter of female scientists. Many of those who support
him do so in full knowledge of the facts, out of a sense of fairness and, in
the case of those who know him personally, loyalty.

My concern is about the number of signatories of
Ballentyne's petition who have got themselves worked up into a state of indignation
on the basis of wrong information. There are three themes that run through the
comments that many people have posted:

a) They think that Tim Hunt has been sacked from his job

b) They think he is 'lost to science'

c) They think University College London (UCL) fired him in
response to a 'Twitter mob'.

None of these things is true. (a) Hunt is a retired
scientist who was asked to resign from an honorary
position. That's shaming and unpleasant,
but an order of magnitude different from being sacked and losing your source of
income. (b) Hunt continues to have an
affiliation to the Crick Institute – a flagship research centre that recently
opened in Central London. (c) UCL are explicit
that their acceptance of his resignation from an honorary position had nothing
to do with the reaction on social media.

So why do people think these things? Quite simply, this is
the interpretation that has been put about in many of the mainstream media. The
BBC has been particularly culpable. The Today programme on Radio 4 ran a piece
which started by saying Hunt had 'lost his job'. This was a couple of days
after the UCL resignation, when any self-respecting journalist would have known
this to be false. Many newspapers fuelled the flames. An interview with Boris
Johnson on the BBC website added the fictitious detail that Hunt had been
sacked by the Royal Society. He is in fact still a Fellow – he has simply been
asked to step down from a Royal Society committee. It is interesting to ask why
the media are so keen to promote the notion of Hunt as victim, cruelly dismissed
by a politically correct university.

It's fascinating analysing the comments on the petition. After deleting duplicates, there were 630
comments. Of those commenters where gender could be judged, 71% were male. Rather
surprisingly, only 52% of commenters were from the UK, and 12% from the US,
with the remainder scattered all over the world.

There were 93 comments that explicitly indicated they
thought that Hunt had been sacked from his job, and/or was now 'lost to
science' – and many more that called for his 'reinstatement', where it was
unclear whether they were aware this was an honorary position. They seemed to think that Hunt was dependent
on UCL for his laboratory work, and that he had a teaching position. For
instance, "Don't let the world lose a great scientist and teacher over a
stupid joke." I would agree with them that if he had been sacked from a
regular job, then UCL's action would have been disproportionate. However, he
wasn't.

Various commentators drew comparisons with repressive
fascist or Marxist states, e.g. "It is reminiscent of the cultural
revolution in China where 'revisionist' professors were driven out of their
offices by their prospective students, to do farm labour." And there was
an awful lot of blaming of women, Twitter and feminism in general, with
comments such as "Too much of this feminist ranting going on. Men need to
get their spines back and bat it away" and "A respected and competent
scientist has been hounded out of his job because of an ignorant baying twitter
mob who don't happen to like his views". And my favourite: "What he
said was a joke. If lesbian feminist women can't take a joke, then they are the
joke." Hmm.

It's unfortunate that the spread of misinformation about
Hunt's circumstances have muddied the waters in this discussion. A minority of those commenting on Ballentyne's
petition are genuine Hunt supporters who are informed of the circumstances; the
bulk seem to be people who are concerned because they have believed the misinformation about what happened to
Hunt; a further set are opportunistic misogynists
who do Hunt no favours by using his story as a vehicle to support their dislike
of women. There is a much more informed debate in the comments
section on Athene Donald's blog, which I would recommend to anyone who
wants to understand both sides of the story.

65 comments:

Hunt is under no illusions about the outcomes. "I am done," he says. "I had planned to do a ton more to help advance science in this nation and in Europe, however I can't perceive how that can happen. I have get to be lethal. I have been hung to dry by scholastic foundations who have not in any case tried to approach me for my side of issues."

If he wants to do more to help advance science in the UK and Europe, then a good start would be to NOT make sexist comments (or racist or whatever) even in jest.

I don't think a guy should be fired for making a sexist joke, but I do strongly believe that Hunt should be rebuked or, at the very least, open to criticism. And he was criticised. This is good. As a scientist at the very top level, he has a responsibility. I don't think he realises how insidious sexism is. Hence, I, for one, won't miss him. (But I'm glad he wasn't fired from paid employment - which I feel would have been too extreme.)

Stephen: Are you implying that anyone who disagrees with you simply hasn't read your article properly? ;)

He made a sexist joke. OK. Stuff happens. But did he sincerely apologise for it? Not that I've seen. He responded by saying that it was just a joke and that “...[he] was just trying to be honest”.

Just. Trying. To. Be. Honest.

On a slightly related note, this reminds me of a time recently when my friend (a lawyer) told me that he was defending a client in court who hurt a guy for calling his sister a "slave", etc. The client's sister is a young black woman. The guy told the judge that he was just joking. Bizarrely, I think he actually was! And the judge agreed. The judge literally said, "The guy was just joking!" Just joking! It seems to me that the judge was on a different world to the one I'm on. Certainly, in a progressive society where racism is widespread, you don't make racist jokes for the fun of it! Now, if Tim Hunt had said something like, "Oops, my bad. Sexism occurs on many different levels. Sexist jokes probably won't help eradicate the sexist culture. They may even make barriers, make sexism acceptable. Maybe in my position, I should avoid making them." Then you would know that he's at least thinking about this issue. But to say it was merely a joke, I was just being honest, is not a great response.

I think you are too cavalier about what the loss of reputation means. Just because someone has not lost a salary does not mean that it is not a very serious, life-changing act to be asked to step down from a public role. As the revolting comment above by 'Anonymous' indicates, when someone is 'monstered' in public, the duty of right-minded people is to defend them as people regardless of whether one agrees with their opinions. Public discourse can only be free and useful to us if we allow all opinions (and jokes) to be articulated and taken up in good faith. The response to Tim Hunt demonstrated a huge amount of misrepresentation and bad faith. He was cast in the role of 'misogynist dinosaur' or 'convenient old fool' instead of a person with experience, opinions, humour and a life's work behind him.

I agree he has suffered a lot, but he wouldn't have suffered so much had he taken people's warnings seriously, apologized, and not continued espousing those themes in media.

I disagree vehemently that society should allow "all opinions (and jokes)". Society doesn't exist without codes of behavior. Sexist and racist remarks and humour enable discrimination to continue because people who discriminate see this as social sanction for their views and behavior - something Dorothy has just shown in the comments she's examined.

I agree that there was also misrepresentation of Tim Hunt: both the dismissal of his comments and extremes at the opposite end showed how little understanding there is still is of sexism and misogyny, and its consequences.

And there are consequences of someone in that position making those kinds of remarks: serious ones. The impact of the self-inflicted suffering of one man does not outweigh the harm of continuing and inflamed discrimination against many, many women.

(I've included references to empirical research on what I've raised here are in this blog post: http://blogs.plos.org/absolutely-maybe/2015/06/22/just-joking-sexist-talk-in-science/ )

Sorry Jan if you find it unacceptable to point out that the person behind the petition which motivated Dorothy to write this post appears from his other public pronouncements to hold views on male sexual behavior that others might find interesting in evaluating whether or not to sign. Others may disagree.

So, Hilde, you are to be the arbiter of all thought and speech then? If not you, who? If we all had to publicly recant for all the remarks we make that are objected to by others we would spend our entire lives apologising. Women are not so pathetic that they cannot hear a joke or a good-humoured remark without abandoning their careers and heading back to the kitchen. To suggest we are this pathetic takes us back to Victorian notions of swooning women, not able to cope with life beyond the home. Hunt said men fall in love with women and women fall in love with men. I completely agree with him. He said women cry when their work is criticised, I would argue with that, but I also know that women make jokes about themselves bursting into tears at inopportune moments. This is called humour and it is the stuff of human life. If you want to eradicate it, you will de-humanise the world.

Apply your logic to a different situation. What would you say if Hunt had made a racist (instead of a sexist) joke? Would you call the targeted sections of society "pathetic" for not being able to take a joke?

Hilda doesn't claim to be the arbiter of all thought and speech; society is the arbiter. Our ideas of what is right or wrong changes over time, through discussions such as these.

What's socially acceptable changes, and because it's a society, that's not determined by a single arbiter. The way you're selectively taking pieces of what Tim Hunt said and reframing them doesn't reflect back on what's happening at the moment.

I'm a cartoonist - obviously I'm keen on humour and have no desire to "eradicate" it. I'm a practitioner of comedy who's also avidly interested in the scholarship of it and the history of it.

If society didn't change its attitudes to groups of people, and the way it speaks and jokes about them, we'd still be finding these funny: I sincerely hope you don't find those socially acceptable.

"There are three themes that run through the comments that many people have posted:

a) They think that Tim Hunt has been sacked from his jobb) They think he is 'lost to science'c) They think University College London (UCL) fired him in response to a 'Twitter mob'."

If the writer actually read my article carefully, it would be clear that:

a) Sir Tim's wife was told, by a UCL senior, that he must resign or be sacked (which amounts to the same thing really).

b) Sir Tim said he was now considered "toxic" and that he was "finished". That sounds pretty lost to me.

c) Fewer than 24 hours after Sir Tim's speech, a senior from UCL telephoned his wife and demanded that he resign or be sacked. The only comprehensible cause of this knee-jerk reaction (made, incidentally, without the approval of the UCL council) would be the violent social media attacks and the poor representation of Sir Tim on BBC Radio 4's "Today" programme. So the assertion that Sir Tim was fired in response to a Twitter mob seems largely (though perhaps not completely) true.

It's interesting the double-standard adopted by the writer of this blog. On the one hand, I'm accused of poor research, despite the fact that I've filled my petition article with links to sources which verify what I have written and also present further information.

On the other hand, there are no such accusations made against anyone from the "anti-Tim" camp, who fail to back most of their accusations up with evidence, who often depend more on rhetoric than reason and who make 'factual' statements that are subsequently proved incorrect. The name "Connie St Louis" springs to mind.

Similarly, you accuse (despite the above evidence) the majority of my petition commenters of not having researched the story properly. I think this is far more true of the many who jumped to the conclusion that Sir Tim was a misogynist and a dinosaur, and who willingly participated in last week's Twitterstorm. Why not make an example of them?

The one point where we seem in accord is your praise of Dame Athene Donald's blog. I, in my petition article, give similar praise. That, indeed, is why I included a link to her article on Sir Tim in my petition.

I didn't accuse you of anything. I pointed out that a large number of those commenting on your petition were under the misapprehension that Hunt was employed by UCL and had lost his job. This is evident from the comments they made. I will post my analysis online when I get a chance so people can confirm that the analysis is factual.In fact, I laid the blame for this misapprehension at the door of the media, who I suspect have a far more potent impact on the public perception of this case than you do.

If you read my petition carefully, you'll see that this blog article is not only poorly argued but also factually inaccurate. I posted a polite and lengthy response here explaining why, yet it appears to have been deleted. So much for free speech, eh?

Just found your earlier comment in spam and have reinstated it. will respond shortly.But you do seem to have an odd take on freedom of speech. This is my blog and I can remove any comments I want. In general, I don't do that unless they are off-topic or offensive, because I find it better to expose arguments and debate them in public.My view on freedom of speech is aligned with the XKCD that you can find at the bottom of this blogpost by Philip Moriartyhttps://muircheart.wordpress.com/2015/06/17/sexism-murder-art-and-science/

Stephen, I find the often used guise of men commenting under a female pseudonym on comment threads to be deceptive and dishonest. You might want to consider using a pseudonym of your own gender when blogging online, especially at the Guardian.

No doubt you are out there on social media, perhaps even using female pseudonyms, to drum up support for your petition and the signatures of women.

Is that what they teach people to do in the theology program at Oxford?

No, that isn't what they teach people to do in the Theology program at Oxford (and I think you know that really).

The reason I sometimes appear as "Susan Ballentyne" is because that is my current Facebook ID; I use Facebook to sign into most of the online newspaper websites.

I changed my Facebook name to Susan after I lost a bet on the outcome of the British general election (these things happen). Facebook won't allow me another name change until 60 days have expired. Let he/ she who has never quoted Lord Melchett from Blackadder 2 to substantiate a bet cast the first stone...

I do not think majority of those contributing to distressinglysexy tag were well informed either. Comments from them are scattered around the internet. Petition writers and other who are opposing UCL's sacking are at least putting more coherent and single place responses unlike myriad blogs created by supporter's of Connie and so on.

Now, let me explain few word choices above.

I did not say supporters of Tim Hunt. People are opposing the autocratic and knee jerk behaviour of UCL etc, not supporting Sir Tim. Opposition is to tyranny and high handedness not to what he said. Like Connie created a RS female president petition despite it not being valid today due to larger issue, Dawkins and company are similarly opposing the larger issue of our right to make jokes and not to apologize for it unless there is actual direct physical or financial harm.

UCL sacked him. They can put out any press release but the fact is that they pressured him to resign knowing well that an honorary unpaid professor cannot fight back unless he wants to harm his wife's paid job in same place. If they had not pressured him, there was no need to accept it so quickly. They could have waited for a while.

To be honest, I don't think it matters whether Hunt's professorship was a paid or an honorary position - the reputational cost to him has been enormous and that matters more than money to someone like him.

I signed because I think UCL owes him an apology and a reinstatement of his role. It should not have accepted his resignation in the first place, given the role of universities to provide protected intellectual spaces in which even politically unpopular ideas can be explored. The revelation yesterday that Hunt's speech was apparently (according to yet more hearsay, admittedly) not only a joke but a warm and funny pro-women one just heightens the sense that he was unjustly treated in a rush to judgement. It would be good for UCL to graciously acknowledge that it acted too hastily, and to try and contribute towards repairing the harm done by this unfortunate affair.

Yes, you may not think it makes a difference, but many people would. I, for one, would have agreed with the petition if he had been fired from a proper job. As I pointed out, it is clearly a very divisive issue as to whether the response was appropriate given that it was an honorary position. Personally, I think it was, but I know reasonable people who disagree with me.But what has totally muddled the issue is to have a load of people arguing the case on the basis of false information.

I have no idea what Tim Hunt actually said. We have the coherent versions of several eyewitnesses about his initial remarks (although I presume they have seen each other's claims, so there is an issue of non-independence), and we have Hunt's claims about the context (although he's had plenty of time to come up with a cover story, and he has an incentive to make it a good one). Now there is a mysterious EU official with a transcript, but we also have people on Twitter stating outright, in so many words, that Hunt is "lying" when he claims to have said "Now, seriously". We know from research in psychology that eyewitness accounts are not reliable; on the other hand, I also know from extensive personal experience that sometimes we convince ourselves that we said "wine" even though we actually said "beer", as confirmed by three family members. In the absence of someone coming forward with a voice recording from their smartphone, we aren't going to get to the actual truth here. (And in any case, it would not be unfair to argue that how people perceived the words that were used has a degree of validity, even if they misheard individual words or filled in some meaning themselves.)

That said: It is entirely possible for /a/ "Tim Hunt did, in fact, make reckless sexist/misogynist comments, with no mitigating factors" and /b/ "UCL acted overhastily to protect its image without adequately hearing Hunt's side of the story" to both be true. Indeed, many of the same commentators who are being very careful in their wording about UCL's actions are those who have (mostly rightly, in my opinion) been among the first to condemn the spin coming from the administrators of several universities (including UCL, if memory serves) in recent cases where their social or political positions were in opposition to the line taken by those administrators.

Let's face it, if someone at UCL had spontaneously "resigned" after, say, publicly criticising the administration for failing to stand up to borderline racist laws about visas for overseas students, and we were told that she had not been pressured in any way at all, we would all be calling bullshit, especially if we found that her spouse was on the payroll at the same institution. Similarly, minimising the financial and other impact on Hunt of losing his UCL position ("Oh, well, it was only an honorary job") misses the point entirely (although the invocation of this as an excuse does suggest to me that the people expressing that opinion might have their doubts about the principle, and are trying to rationalise their support for it on the basis that not much harm has been done).

We give due process to people caught red-handed committing horrible crimes, and we would all moan like hell if someone introduced, say, a fast-track, no-defence procedure for muggers caught on CCTV who are "obviously guilty". While Hunt's continuation in his position at UCL is not a matter for the courts, it's a bad day when UCL behaves in such a fundamentally undemocratic and illiberal way and doesn't get called out on it.

One other interesting aspect of this whole affair has been the claims from all sides that they were victims of Twitter mobs. (It seems to me that it's now becoming de rigueur to claim pre-emptively that you're the victim of a Twitter mob before anything happens.) For what it's worth, although I claim no great expertise, I didn't see what I would call a full-blown Twitterstorm directed against either Tim Hunt or his critics. In that case, maybe we are looking at a situation where UCL overreacted in the face of the *possibility* of a Twitter mob. That would really be a sad state of affairs. There was nothing in this situation that couldn't have waited a week; UCL could have issued a statement saying "We are concerned about reports bla bla and we will be asking Sir Tim for an explanation bla bla reserve the right to take appropriate action bla bla".

I don't think the addition of "now seriously" do very much to soften Tim Hunt's inappropriate comments. Also, his other comments about "chauvinist" and "monsters like me" are quite intimidating and not funny.

"“It’s strange that such a chauvinist monster like me has been asked to speak to women scientists. Let me tell you about my trouble with girls. Three things happen when they are in the lab: you fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticise them they cry. Perhaps we should make separate labs for boys and girls? Now seriously, I’m impressed by the economic development of Korea. And women scientists played, without doubt an important role in it. Science needs women and you should do science despite all the obstacles, and despite monsters like me.”

This is a very ambivalent message and if I were the organizers of the Korea Federation of Women’s Science and Technology Associations, I would be outraged.

They didn't invite him to come and speak to be told "you should do science despite all the obstacles, and despite monsters like me."

I'm not sure if many people in the UK are aware of it, but average salaries for scientists and engineers are only marginally above that of a post-doc . . . not more than about 40,000 pounds a year. Solicitors, police and those working in the financial industry earn far more.

On a per capita basis, the UK is very low down on the list of countries in terms of science investment. You can check for yourself:

Glossing over Tim Hunts statement only make the UK look backward and out of touch with the times. I'm sure Koreans are not planning to invite another speaker from the UK anytime soon.Denials on the part of important British public figures like Dawkins and Athene Donald do not help.

Both in terms of expenditures per capita and percentage of GDP, Singapore, Denmark, Estonia, Iceland, Switzerland, Finland, US, China, Japan, Germany, France, South Korea, Canada, Australia, Taiwan, Sweden, Israel, Norway and Austria spend more on science research and development than the UK.

South Korea spends the most, both as a percentage of GDP and per capita. So perhaps South Korea knows a few things about science spending that the UK hasn't been able to figure out. Attempting to prop up the perception of science with a few out of touch buffoons like Dawkins won't pave over the fact that the UK is under funding its scientific research, and its scientists.

I don't have insider information on the Hunt affair other than the Guardian article, but I should say that the failure of UCL to given a professor a fair hearing is a sad reminder of the Heather van der Lely affair:https://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/pinker-leads-international-attack-on-ucls-unjust-treatment-of-scholar/407043.articlehttp://www.dcscience.net/pinker-letter.pdf

I'm traveling so don't have time to respond to everyone, but I would just note that the topic of this blogpost is media spin of the Hunt case.

Franck - I really don't think that's a helpful contribution. This happened several years ago and the parallels are very thin. Heather was employed by UCL. It was certainly a very unhappy dispute but there was a lengthy process involving lawyers on both sides. She was not fired for speaking out.Furthermore, she maintained that UCL had behaved in a sexist fashon, which is hardly the case here.

It is an interesting idea to investigate how well informed people actually are when they react to an event.

a) They think that Tim Hunt has been sacked from his job(a) Hunt is a retired scientist who was asked to resign from an honorary position. That's shaming and unpleasant, but an order of magnitude different from being sacked and losing your source of income.

Yep he hasn't lost a job. See b) below.

b) They think he is 'lost to science'(b) Hunt continues to have an affiliation to the Crick Institute – a flagship research centre that recently opened in Central London.

Your rebuttal to b) ignore's Hunt's own words in the June 15th The Observer article:

"Hunt is under no illusions about the consequences. “I am finished,” he says. “I had hoped to do a lot more to help promote science in this country and in Europe, but I cannot see how that can happen. I have become toxic. I have been hung to dry by academic institutes who have not even bothered to ask me for my side of affairs.”"

It is quite reasonable for people to accept Hunt's assessment here of his own situation i.e that he has become 'toxic' i.e. that this means he is 'lost to science'

c) They think University College London (UCL) fired him in response to a 'Twitter mob'.(c) UCL are explicit that their acceptance of his resignation from an honorary position had nothing to do with the reaction on social media.

UCL gave a resignation ultimatum to Hunt's wife on the 10th June, less than 2 days after the media and twitter response started and before having spoken to Hunt. They clearly felt secure enough in their information to sack him from his honorary position without needing to hear his words.

Why?

Given the latest alleged transcript it is clear that a wholly innocent account is possible to explain Tim Hunt's words. Actually UCL are more specific they claim "Media and online commentary played no part", they did not restrict their claim to 'social media'. However UCL making an "explicit" claim does not make it a valid claim. You seem intent on investigating how people could possibly know the facts before reacting but clearly ignore the implication that UCL could not possibly know anything about the event without relying on "Media and online commentary" why do only apply this scrutiny only in one direction?

A deep irony for me is seeing many people linking to this piece clearly because it has the title "How the media spun the Tim Hunt story" as if it bolsters the underlying accusations against Hunt, but this piece itself does not touch in any detail on how media has reported the situation but is clearly only a straw-man exercise in picking over how certain individuals have responded.

If you think that the latest alleged transcript is "wholly innocent", then I can see why women continue to languish in their science and engineering careers often due to the effect of unconscious bias.

This is yet another gaping example of tolerated, unchecked, and not so unconscious bias.

It's also a diplomatic matter, as I'm sure South Korea is not happy they invited such a thoughtless impolite person to give a speech.

OK fair enough "wholly innocent" is not for me to say. But I think most will accept that the latest transcript describes a speech far removed and clearly less egregious than the implied previous theory i.e. that Hunt had been earnestly espousing a manifesto for lab segregation.

Tim Hunt is certainly lost from any role as a science ambassador, but that is inevitable after those comments. He is not 'lost from science'. He still has a position at the Crick Institute.I'm rather taken aback by all the fuss over whether it was a joke or not. Since on Radio 4 he said he was 'just being honest' it seems unlikely he intended a joke, but as far as I am concerned it is neither here nor there. If it was a joke, it was a sexist joke that trivialised women scientists. A lot of sexism is casual, and remarks which marginalise or undermine women in science are often made by those who are not horrible, misogynistic people. That's half the problem: if we accept sexist comments as normal behaviour, we just perpetuate sexism.The other thing I find odd is people who argue it's all OK because he then said good things about women. Sexism is not a zero sum game where you are entitled to say something sexist provided you say something positive about women to cancel it out.For those who think it was all entirely normal behaviour, I would ask this question: can you think of any other occasion where a high-profile figure made a similar comment about women - joke or otherwise - in such a very public forum?

"Tim Hunt is certainly lost from any role as a science ambassador, but that is inevitable after those comments. He is not 'lost from science'. He still has a position at the Crick Institute."

This is just asserting your opinion, if you want to say Tim Hunt is exaggerating this point why don't you say it? It is debatable, but a reasonable position to take.

The purpose of your exercise here is clearly laid out here:

"My concern is about the number of signatories of Ballentyne's petition who have got themselves worked up into a state of indignation on the basis of wrong information."

So in answer to

b) They think he is 'lost to science'

I offered that it is perfectly reasonable for the signatories to take Hunt's assessment of his situation at face value. they can read:

"I am finished”? "

and

“I had hoped to do a lot more to help promote science in this country and in Europe, but I cannot see how that can happen. I have become toxic."

as perfectly valid information that tells them he considers himself "lost to science".

If you want to argue that it "wrong information" that's fine but you have to argue directly against Tim Hunt. Making out there is some clinical proof that the signatories are wrong without directly engaging Hunt is deceptive.

Well you have some points but there was a blog that appeared a few days ago on reddit that did make me think about the double standard.http://antifeministsite.blogspot.com/2015/06/is-britain-violent-feminist-police-state.htmlWhy is it that when a women advocates violence nothing much is said but if a man says some joking comments he is forced out. And make no mistake Hunt was forced out.

Does anyone have a link to the full video of Tim Hunt's comments in Korea? It is frustrating to have all these comments and transcripts from various people about what was said, but no actual video or audio. Wasn't the room full of journalists?

Knowing what we know and having heard Tim Hunts interview in Radio 4 after the initial incident, I still think the UCL response was proportionate. I do not buy Stephen Ballantyne's argument and others that you are free to joke about anything you want and not face the consequences. It is not normal to make racist jokes, so why should you make sexist jokes? And someone in TH position needs to choose his words and jokes carefully because of the weight they carry.

To me the disappointing thing was what TH said and did after the event. Until very recently, the initial reaction was to complain about his treatment without even considering the impact the whole event has on women in science. I seriously disagree about the "emotional entanglements being a distraction to science" theory/observation. Unfortunately, many professors think this way and their ideas go further to things like: women are not tough enough, too emotional and other idiotic ideas. The irony is that these profs are very good at science but hold such views that are contrary to the available evidence. They also happen to all be men and very powerful in academic circles.

It also goes beyond science. It reinforces the horrible idea that some professions are only suitable for men (or women for that matter). Instead all professions are better off with a sexually balanced and diverse workforce. This is especially true in science where people need to work together and come up with novel ideas everyday.

I also want to tackle the notion that many people (such as Milo in Sky news and Boris with his grasp of tear gland physiology) always mention when debating the issue. It is this idea that brains of men and women are wired differently. This is of course true and thank Darwin for that! But these people say different but they really mean that one is better than the other (you can guess which one they think is better). This is mentioned far too often, and I really want to say that in a science team thinking differently is what makes the science excellent. It should go without saying that it is excellent for all professions. The fact that we have to make this clear over and over again to people in media and people in power, shows that we have so much more to go until we achieve gender equality.

You were losing me before, but you totally lost me when you counted who the number of male commenters and having decided that was useful information, implicitly implied it was a reason to discount the comments.

What about the high likelihood that Connie St Louis lied about the whole situation just like she lied on her CV about her entire career? Also, her two partners got together with her and planned out how they were going to spin it. Given that Connie is an habitual liar why should we believe her over a nobel prize winner or the EU representative who was there?

I would love to see people retracting their statements about tim hunt's joke and apologize but that won't happen because that goes against the narrative.

Anonymous, it is journalists' job to report what happened, and checking to confirm accuracy of quotes is not some kind of conspiracy: it is good professional practice. As Dorothy points out, you can hear Tim Hunt in his own words confirm that their report was accurate. The meeting's hosts publicly expressed their concerns, as did other journalists who were there. That some find it acceptable isn't surprising, as sexism is still so common.

The differences here do not seem to be so much "what" was said, but whether or not it was meant to be "self-deprecating." And that is rather beside the point. The statements included some extraordinarily hurtful stereotypes about a gender, and about one gender in the scientific workplace. That sends a message, if a highly respected and liked Nobel Laureate can say it, then there's something ok with it. The outpouring of both sexist, misogynist, and now racist statements across the comment streams of newspapers and the internet generally, with people clearly thinking they have some kind of common cause with a Nobel Laureate, proves the point of how harmful social sanction for sexist remarks can be. That's not less so if it's a joke, and not less so if they are not intended to be malicious. Saying afterwards "hey, just kidding!" doesn't make it alright.

Those who think attacks on Tim Hunt are wrong, but attacks on journalists doing what journalists are mean to do are fully ok, are being utterly hypocritical. Our societies need scientists and journalists. And we need to be able to debate issues without ad hominem attacks. Tim Hunt is clearly a good and highly respected person - and so are Connie St Louis, Deborah Blum and Ivan Oransky. Attempts to denigrate them as people are sickening and the sooner it stops, the better. In particular, the attacks on Connie St Louis, which include a vast amount of racist bile, are colossally offensive. That our society seems unable to stem the misogyny and racism that has been unleashed is the strongest possible argument for why respected people must not themselves add discriminatory remarks to the public discourse.

I earlier commented on the blog of Athene Donald regarding (c). I'll repeat that here.

You state: "UCL are explicit that their acceptance of his resignation from an honorary position had nothing to do with the reaction on social media."

I’m sure that this is true, UCL will have a policy to accept resignations rather than declining them… What the UCL statement DOES NOT say is “Media and online commentary played no part in UCL’s decision to ask for his resignation”.

These statements from universities are usually very carefully worded. I don't think it is a coincidence that UCL wrote "to accept his resignation" rather than "to ask for his resignation".

Dear Dorothy, Marnie & Hilda,I'm blown away by your patient, logical responses in which you bring evidence to bear.Reading the comments, I am also reminded of the research, most recently, the PUP book by Karpowitz & colleague, the Silent Sex, which shows that men consistently over-rate their ability while women under-rate their's. I find this to be a good framework for understanding what I see in some of these comments.Great blog, Dorothy, cheers, Dawn

1. "If it was a joke, it was a sexist joke that trivialised women scientists."

How do you know? Context is everything. In my eyes, it doesn't triviliase women scientists at all. You probably don't like something that is implied by the 'joke': that the average woman is more emotional than the average man (and being 'emotional' is, supposedly, not very 'scientific'). Unfortunately (or not), at least some research confirms this: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hope-relationships/201402/brain-differences-between-genders

2. However, my impression is that the remark was half joke, half serious. He expressed, in a humorous way, something that had occurred to him (but that he did not necessarily take very seriously, hence the 'jokish' way of expressing it). That opinion was that women are valuable scientists but that male and female researchers might be better off working in segregated laboratories because they fall in love with each other and because women are, on average, more emotional and 'touchy' than men (see Blum blog).

You may not like that opinion, but it's an opinion. And we live in a culture that protects or should protect, within certain boundaries, the freedom of speech. Sexist? Probably, but so is the remark that only women give birth. It refers to a difference between the average man and the average woman. Hunt believes that some of these differences can be problematic in a work (lab) environment. He's probably right, but that should in my opinion (and almost certainly also not in his 'serious' opinion) not be a reason to segregate labs. Not in the least because a mix of men and women has also positive effects.

Being the only man on this female dominated course and the butt of the teachers’ jokes was hard in the beginning. “I cried every evening for the first few weeks. I had a good friend there who helped get me through it but I spent a lot of time crying into my pillow at home,” he admits.

This did happen many years ago and he says “things have improved since I started out but men still encounter prejudice” and men are still very much a minority in childcare as only two per cent of the early years workforce is male and this statistic has remained steady in the past decade, despite national and local recruitment campaigns aimed at men.

By the way, of all the lies and half truths that have been spread in this case, this one is particularly nasty, imo:

"(a) Hunt is a retired scientist who was asked to resign from an honorary position."

That is correct, but this is the version of the UCL provost, who funny enough, refers to this blog ('in good faith on the basis that it was his personal choice'):

"I will simply restate that when on the 10th June Sir Tim sent in his resignation from his honorary position with UCL, as Provost I sanctioned acceptance of that resignation in good faith on the basis that it was his personal choice as the honourable thing to do." - See more at: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/staff/staff-news/0615/26062015-provosts-view-women-in-science#sthash.SczetduF.dpuf

The one thing that oppressive belief systems or evil doctrines lack and therefore utterly defines them is HUMOR.If I read a statement from deevybee (however intelligent she is) like for instance "a sexist remark in whatever casual or ironic context remains offensive " ...I cringe and see the image of ugly imans, dark dictators and George Orwell himself popping up in my brain...and I feel the beginning of the end of freedom of speech & thought closing in on us !I sometimes wonder how Monty Python would avoid nowadays being vilified and persecuted (or even killed) if they made 'Life of Brian', or an 'over the top sexist off shoot or an islam off-shoot today?!

Throughout this protracted discussion it seems to have got lost that my suggestion re Tim Hunt (as reported in the Independent) was that he should not serve on panels that distribute funds or decide promotions etc; this is particularly relevant for institutions that are already criticised, rightly or wrongly, for being an old boys' club. It's a fairly fundamental principle that if you have a panel of this kind, you try to ensure the people on it are not biased against people of a particular type. Whether or not Hunt is biased, he certainly gave a very good impression of being so, in a very public manner, repeating his comments next day.I have not suggested he should be gagged, shot , imprisoned, or prevented from doing science. I hope everyone can try to retain some perspective and respect my freedom of speech to express an opinion about highly unusual and overt sexist comments from a prominent figure without comparing me to Stalin or concluding I have no sense of humour. I speak for a great many women who are simply fed up with being slapped down in this way if they protest about being marginalised.

Not sure who you are following on Twitter, but I'm puzzled by the constant allusions to a howling mob. Could somebody please perhaps storify the relevant tweets so we can evaluate this claim? Unless you are referring to #distractinglysexy, which was a good-humoured campaign of mockery that did not call for anything to happen to Hunt. The whole thing is now starting to get surreal, because Louise Mensch appears to have been stirring up her own howling mob to challenge those who were seen as part of the mythical original howling mob. You know you've reached peak Twitter madness when you see a tweet that has mentions @deevybee and @louisemensch complaining about unfairness, lack of attention to facts, oppression of freedom of speech etc and you genuinely can't work out what side they are on.For the record, my position on Hunt was stated in the pieces referenced at the start of my blog above. I didn't howl in either of them.